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The Discovery Of The Earth

Decent Essays

It is inevitable that the Sun will turn into a red giant and eventually a black hole, thus, killing everything that is left in our solar system. When this happens, the fate of the human race will either survive or go extinct. If we as a species intend on surviving, we must develop ways to colonize interstellar space. However, there is currently many limitations that don’t allow humans to travel vast distances in short periods of time. Since the space race, there have been countless proposed propulsion solutions; however, with current technology one stands out. This being the solar sail.
Solar sails were proposed by Johannes Kepler nearly 400 years ago. He believed that since Europe were still using naval exploration as their main means, that we could use sails to explore the galaxy. Kepler noted that when observing a comet’s tail, there was that it was being blown around by solar breeze. With this theory, Kepler believed that we could use this breeze to propel this sail just like how wind on Earth propels a ship in the ocean. This theory has been disproven by scientists however.
A solar sail is a large piece of aluminized, temperature-resistant material known as CP-1. There is another sail that is composed of aluminum reinforced Mylar. For a solar sail to work, it must have be reflective. This allows for light particles to bounce off of it, thus, creating a thrust. This would occur at a gentle rate giving the sail a gradual acceleration. Unlike other interstellar

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